Preakness Contenders

A victory in the Preakness would make Classic Empire only the eighth juvenile male champion to capture the Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown since the Eclipse Awards were created in 1971. Of the seven others, four are Triple Crown winners: Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (1977), Affirmed (1978) and American Pharoah (2015).

Classic Empire endured a nightmarish trip in the May 6 Kentucky Derby, pinched well back after a chain reaction collision at the break and emerging from the race with swelling in his right eye. Despite the circumstances, the Pioneerof the Nile colt managed to rally for fourth, beaten less than nine lengths.

An eventful 3-year-old season for Classic Empire began when he was third in the Holy Bull (G2) at Gulfstream Park, coming out of the race with a foot abscess. His training was further hampered when he refused to breeze on two occasions in South Florida, once with discomfort in his back.

He didn’t race again for nine weeks, overcoming some early trouble to come off the pace and win the Arkansas Derby (G1) by a half-length, convincing his connections to make the trip to Louisville.

Classic Empire won four of his five starts at 2, including the Bashford Manor (G3), Breeders’ Futurity (G1) and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1). His only loss came in the Hopeful (G1) at Saratoga, where he wheeled at the start and dropped jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. – the only time regular rider Julien Leparoux, then recovering from a broken wrist – was not aboard.

Jockey

He came to the U.S. from France in 2003 to exercise horses for Patrick Biancone in California, but it wasn’t long before Julien Leparoux’s riding ability made him the trainer’s first-call rider.

Leparoux, 33, debuted at Saratoga Race Course in 2005, and won his first race that August aboard Easter Guardian. The following summer, he won 28 races at the nation’s oldest racetrack, the most ever by an apprentice jockey.

In 2006, Leparoux led all jockeys with 403 wins and $12,491,316 in purses, both records for “bug” riders, earning him the Eclipse Award as top apprentice. He was the first apprentice to win riding titles at both Churchill Downs and Keeneland, and has also been leading rider at Turfway Park.

Leparoux was voted his second Eclipse Award in 2009, winning 247 of 1,284 races and $18,560,565 in purses, also capturing three Breeders’ Cup races at Santa Anita – the Juvenile Fillies with She Be Wild, Filly & Mare Sprint with Informed Decision, and Dirt Mile with Furthest Land – and was selected the event’s top rider.

The only other jockeys besides Leparoux to win the Eclipse as both an apprentice and journeyman rider are Steve Cauthen, Kent Desormeaux and Chris McCarron, all Hall of Famers.

In the Preakness, Leparoux was second with Macho Again in 2008, ninth with General Quarters in 2009, 11th with Pleasant Prince in 2010, fourth with Dialed In in 2011 and ninth with Daddy Nose Best in 2012 and Titletown Five in 2013, and sixth with Danzig Moon in 2015.

Leparoux has won nearly 2,400 races and more than $140 million in purse earnings over his career, with seven Breeders’ Cup wins and a Canadian classic victory aboard Sir Dudley Digges in the 2016 Queen’s Plate, the country’s equivalent of the Kentucky Derby.

Owner

John C. Oxley

Founder of Oxley Petroleum, an oil and gas exploration firm based in his native Tulsa, Okla. in 1962, John C. Oxley is best known in the racing industry for owning 2001 Kentucky Derby winner Monarchos, whose time of 1:59.97 is second only to Secretariat in race history, and the multiple Grade 1-winning champion mare Beautiful Pleasure.

Monarchos was sixth as the second choice in a field of 11 in the 126th Preakness. Since then, Oxley has been represented on Old Hilltop by Grade 1 Fountain of Youth winner Booklet, who finished 12th in 2002; Dynamic Impact, seventh in 2014 and Danzig Moon, sixth to Triple Crown champion American Pharoah in 2015.

In 2012, Oxley walked away with four Sovereign Awards when he was chosen Canada’s top owner and campaigned champion 2-year-old male and Horse of the Year Uncaptured and champion 2-year-old female Spring in the Air. Uncaptured would go on to win the Prince of Wales Stakes, the second leg of Canada’s Triple Crown, in 2013. Oxley also won the race in 2012 with filly Dixie Strike, and earned the Sovereign as top owner again in 2014.

The son of Hall of Fame polo player John T. Oxley, he is also an accomplished polo player and member of the sport’s hall of fame, inducted in 2010. Oxley sold Oxley Petroleum in May 2003 and created Oxley Resources LLC, a smaller-scale oil and gas exploration and production venture.

Trainer

Mark Casse

A nine-time Sovereign Award winner as Canada’s top trainer (2006-08, 2011-16) and a member of that country’s Hall of Fame, Casse has had three starters in the Preakness, finishing seventh with Dynamic Impact in 2014, sixth with Danzig Moon in 2015, and eighth with Fellowship in 2016.

Casse, an Indianapolis native, is the son of famed horseman Norman Casse, who ran Cardinal Hill Farm and was a chairman of the board of the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company. The elder Casse passed away on March 6, 2016 at the age of 79.

Mark Casse became hooked on racing at age 12 when he rode in a horse van on the way to watch Secretariat win the 1973 Kentucky Derby. He took out his trainer’s license at age 18 and became the private trainer for Harry Mangurian’s Mockingbird Farm.

For much of the year, Casse’s horses are based at Woodbine in Ontario, and he also has divisions in Kentucky and Florida with his son, Norman. Together with his wife, Tina, he owns and operates Moonshadow Farm, a training center in Ocala, Fla.

Casse won his 2,000th career race in May 2016, one week before the Preakness, with Reimburse at Gulfstream Park. He has trained four of Canadian Horses of the Year in Sealy Hill (2007), Uncaptured (2012) and fillies Lexie Lou (2014) and Catch a Glimpse (2015) and is a five-time Canadian classic winner, taking the Prince of Wales Stakes three times (2009, 2012-13) and the Breeders’ Stakes (2007) and Queen’s Plate (2014) once each. Lexie Lou was voted Canada’s champion grass mare of 2016.

Also in 2015 Casse trained Canadian champion 2-year-old male Riker and earned his first Breeders’ Cup victories with Catch a Glimpse in the Juvenile Fillies Turf and Tepin in the Turf against males, earning her the Eclipse Award as champion grass mare. In 2016, Casse horses King and His Court (2-year-old male) and Victory to Victory (2-year-old female) earned Sovereign Awards in their divisions.

The recently retired Tepin would repeat her championship in 2016 after a campaign highlighted by six straight wins, three of them Grade or Group 1 races, including the Queen Anne Stakes against males at England’s prestigious Royal Ascot meet.